I Would Be Avenged
by Benestro
Summary: "A bag of bones for Sorn! And a chattering skull for him too!"


**I**

Yorgus, chief of the Halags, lay choking his life out on the Asgardian tundra, tangled in his own entrails. The fact he still struggled was a testament to his iron will and his seething fury at his lot.

He had led his war band to destroy the Mosfell people, who dared rebuff and mock his thanes when they came to their pathetic village of rude timber huts demanding tribute. But rustic as they were, the Mosfell were no fools. By some witchery or cunning they were alerted to Yorgus' intent and intercepted his war band halfway to their village on the open tundra, and fell upon the Halags with rabid savagery. Men, women and even children fell upon Yorgus and his startled vassals and rended them with spear, axe, and sword. Yorgus himself was dragged from the saddle by a ravening, tawny horde, and well nigh butchered. He lay now where he fell, his yellow beard stained scarlet by the blood surging forth with every labored breath from his pierced lungs. He lay motionless, still gripping his fine battle axe of burnished steel. His eyes were fixed on the clear sky above, ablaze with impotent rage.

A shadow passed over him and a gaunt grey face, framed by lank, milky hair appeared, regarding him with cold, soulless grey eyes.

"Damn you witch!" wheezed Yorgus wetly. "You promised me victory!"

"Not so, milord!" replied the woman. She was tall and stooped, of indeterminate age and shrouded in ragged robes of gray. "You said, and I quote, 'I would be avenged upon the Mosfell.' You did not specify what form that vengeance should take, or when you should have it."

Yorgus tried to rise, but barely managed to lift his head off the ground when a fresh gout of blood spewed from his lips. "Wretched whore!" he croaked, sinking back to the ground. "Festering harridan! Damn you to hell!"

"Charming to the last. Perhaps if you had been more amenable in your dealings with me, Yorgus, you would have gotten more pleasant results. As it is, farewell! Try not to let anticipation of your future revenge spoil these last moments. Savor your death!" Chuckling, the grey witch ambled off.

As darkness closed in about him, Yorgus saw the vultures descending in a leisurely circle.

 **II**

"Sigyn! Thou long-shanked doxie! Where do you think you're off too." roared the fur-clad youth.

The long-shanked doxie in question whirled to face he who hailed her so churlishly. Shading her eyes from the glare of the summer sun, she bellowed in kind. "I'll not do this thing, Radulf, it's revolting! I think I saw a snow leopard slink behind yon boulder, I'm going to have a look."

"Come come! "Replied the lad, a crooked grin spread upon his face. "Aid me in gathering these bones for old Sorn, and we can sneak off to the smokehouse again! I have secured a small keg of last year's ale! We can…"

"Bah! If you think I'm going to allow you to paw me in that stifling shack with your fingers reeking of rotting man-flesh, you have another think coming!" she turned her back on the lad, her golden braids whipping about and coming to rest on the back of her wolfskin cloak. Using the great boar-spear she carried like a walking stick, she stomped across the tundra with the gravity of an old wandering wizard, though she was but a lass of some sixteen summers.

Radulf brandished the bleached human thighbone he held and shook it at Sigyn's back, his pale face flushed with anger beneath his sparse yellow beard. "Get ye back here girl! If I have to do this foul work so do you!"

Sigyn waved a dismissive hand in Radulf's direction and continued one her way, careful not to tread on the human bones that lay scattered hither and yon about her feet. Along the way, she passed near another fur clad girl, one Embla, a dark-skinned lass found as a mewling babe among the burned wreckage of a caravan ravaged by the Vanir. The baby was brought to Sorn, shaman of the village, who proclaimed the ebon child to be a scion of Svartalfhiem, land of the dark elves, sent by the gods to be his ward and apprentice. The Aesir, most of whom had never been further south than Cimmeria, took him at his word. He named her Embla and raised her in his eldritch craft. Embla was eyed by most of the tribe with unease and suspicion, for were not the dark elves makers of mischief and fey magic? But for reasons perhaps only children might fathom, Embla and Sigyn became fast friends and were inseparable throughout childhood.

"Heed Radulf, Sigyn." Embla purred, with a hint of sarcasm dancing in her obsidian eyes. "Sorn bid us fetch these, the bones of our tribe's enemies, so that he might work powerful magic to bring us good hunting and a mild winter."

Sigyn snorted derisively at her friend's suggestion. "Mild winter indeed! I've never seen one of those in my life! This is Asgard! Fiddling about with old bones will not stay the chill breath of the Frost giant! You two grub about in this rot if you want. I'll rejoin you later!"

Embla shrugged. "As you wish! Sorn will no doubt be cross, but you can do no wrong in the eyes of the elders, no doubt you will escape punishment! Enjoy your stroll, and do not get overheated. You can leave Radulf in my care without fear! Isn't that right Radulf?

Radulf scowled at Embla's dancing eyes and wicked smirk, then lowered his gaze to his work. He found Embla unsettling, both in appearance and demeanor, but kept his piece, for he would have frolicked arm and arm with the devil himself if he thought it would please Sigyn.

Sigyn strode off at a brisk pace until she was behind the boulder and headed down a gentle slope. The weather was much warmer here in high summer, and green grass had sprung up all about. Sigyn did not think of the grim nourishment that fed that grass from the previous year, though she had been in the battle, barely fifteen and wielding an axe as part of the vanguard of her tribe's war-band.

Now she frolicked lazily among the grass. There had been no snow leopard. Twas but a ruse to leave the noisome labor. "Sorn is an old fool, or worse, a charlatan!" she thought. "Sharp wits and strong thews are what get you through winter! Not fondling corpses like some Ghoul!"

At length she came to another boulder, a low, long flat one, smooth and flat as a feasting table. Sigyn leapt up on it and surveyed her surrounding, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her face. Nothing was to be seen save patches of green upon the tundra, a clear blue sky and the blazing orb of the sun. No animals, no people, no _enemies_.

She doffed her fur cloak and rolled it up into a bundle."I think a nap is in order." she stretched herself out on the rock with the bundled cloak under her head, and closed her emerald eyes.

Dozing, she entered a sort of half dreaming reverie that was not quite slumber, nor full wakefulness. The foolishness of Sorn was on her mind and she recalled something her grandfather had said of Embla; that Sorn lied about her being a dark elf, that she was just a normal girl from far to the south, That he had wandered as far as fabled Shem and Stygia in his youth, and there were many dark people there, and none were magical. Shem! Stygia! Ophir! Recalling the tales of her Grandfather brought forth a feverish miasma of visions to her young mind. Ah! To see such wonders! To taste the exotic viands and sip alien vintages! Her Grandfather had been lustily descriptive of the charms of the women in these magical lands, Sigyn held little interest for _those_ tales, but if the women were so magnificent, surely they were matched by their men! Bold, dashing warriors in burnished steel and silken finery! Oh!, by Ymir! Those must be lands of high adventure!

As she daydreamed, Sigyn was unaware of the stirring of the earth near the rock she lay upon, of the expulsion of fetid vapor that burst out from the loam, preceding a gaunt, skeletal hand, a hand of bone barely clothed in yellow, parchment-like skin. Unaware of the desiccated carcass that slowly sat upright, clods of dirt falling away from the rusted mail, rotting linen, and decayed flesh. Unaware of the grim, moldering skull, festooned with the tatters of a yellow beard, as it swiveled on dried crackling vertebrae to regard her nubile young body with maggot-filled sockets.

 **III**

It was the smell that brought Sigyn to wakefulness. The cloying sickly stench of decay, so strong she tasted it in the back of her throat. She sat up and looked around. Standing beside her rock bed was a necromantic vision of madness, a fetid, scarecrow mockery of an Asgardian warrior. Lipless jaws parted, uttering a silent war cry. Yellow, paper thin flesh creaked and ripped as the skeletal arms raised on high a tarnished battle axe. Forbidden black magic brought unholy life to this cadaver, and kept a few simple thoughts firing in its rancid, gelid brain.

"Kill! Be Avenged!"

Screaming in terror, Sigyn snatched up the boar-spear at her side and flung it into the revenant, transfixing it through the decayed breast. The dead warrior took no notice and brought down his axe. It clanged down upon the rock, striking sparks, as Sigyn leapt clear. The Aesir lass drew a copper headed hatchet from her belt, and stood her ground atop the flat boulder. To flee, even from this arcane nightmare, was anathema to her. Slowly the thing clambered up the side of the boulder. Sigyn struck! Burying the hatchet deep in the repulsive things brainpan. Still it fought! Sigyn had to release her hatchet to avoid a gutting slash from the battle axe.

Now it stood unsteadily before her atop the boulder. She suppressed a shudder and the urge to vomit. Foul goo oozed from the thing's split skull and dribbled upon the rock. Tatters of desiccated entrails waved obscenely in the breeze betwixt the bony knees. It brought up the axe, high over its head…

With a feral scream, Sigyn charged full into the cadaver, thrusting her shoulder into its torso, hurling it and herself off the edge of the boulder. Dry, brittle bones snapped as they fell in a heap upon the ground. Sigyn pinned the lich beneath her knees and tore at it with her bare hands. By sheer savage strength she tore a rotting arm off at the shoulder, and then began pummeling the thing with doubled fists.  
Smashing. Crushing. Pulpy, noxious rot spewed and splashed upon her. Mindlessly she screamed and cursed pressing her attack. The noisome Wight struggled, clawing her tender flesh with it's remaining hand. Biting. Kicking.  
Gradually it's resistance weakened, it's unholy vitality faded…

"Vengeance…I was to have…vengeance…

Embla and Radulf sat atop their full sacks of bones in awkward silence. The twain had little in common save a mutual love for Sigyn. Embla enjoyed teasing Radulf and watching him squirm, but that too had grown tiresome. At length Radulf sighed.

"Should we go look for her now?" he asked.

"Not yet. There are still some hours till nightfall, and she will squawk like a hen if we go after her. I'd soon as not listen to that. She'll be along directly."

"I hope she is not in trouble, the Vanir…"

"Have not been seen since the trashing they got two months ago, and the Hyperborians would not be about in this heat. Besides, Sigyn knows what she's doing. Stop fretting, your sweetheart will be fine."

Radulf's face reddened and he averted his eyes from the smirking Embla.

Silence reigned once more until an uneven, shambling shadow emerged from behind a boulder.

"You see?" quoth Embla. "She's here!"

"Sigyn!" shouted Radulf. Realizing the relief in his voice had been too prevalent, he affected a sterner tone, "Where have you been? Do you hold us in such low esteem that…Ymir! That stench!"

Sigyn indeed reeked of the grave, covered as she was in the walking corpse's foul drippings. On her back she carried a makeshift pack made of her cloak. Thrust in her belt was a tarnished, yet finely crafted battle axe. And atop the boar spear in her hand was impaled a grinning skull, oozing filth from a cleft in it's pate, the wispy remains of it's beard stirring as _it's jaws worked wordlessly_.

Sigyn cast her bundle down with the other sacks of bones. Unlike those parcels, the contents of hers wriggled with unnatural vitality. Embla and Radulf recoiled in horror.

"There!" spat Sigyn. "A bag of bones for Sorn! And a chattering skull for him too! He's welcome to the damned things. But _I'm_ keeping the axe, by Ymir!" 

**The End**


End file.
